Venezuela Raises Iron Hand Against Protesters
By Juan Forero and Ezequiel Minaya
The Wall Street Journal
April 16, 2014

Police arrest an antigovernment protester in Caracas this month. The state is accused of employing violence. Reuters

President Maduro Is Taking Severe—And Many Say Violent—Measures to Stamp Out Dissent

CARACAS, Venezuela—During his 14 years in power, the wily and charismatic Hugo Chávez unnerved his adversaries with bluster, intimidation and the occasional jailing of opponents.

But his successor, President Nicolás Maduro, has taken more severe—and many say violent—measures to stamp out dissent during the past 10 weeks of turmoil caused by a protest movement.

The president has deployed National Guard troops and intelligence agents, buttressed by armored personnel carriers and bands of paramilitary motorcyclists, who beat protesters and have at times fired at them, say witnesses, alleged victims and Venezuelan and foreign human rights groups.

"Day after day, there is more repression, there is more brutality, more fury," said Alfredo Romero, head of the Caracas-based group Foro Penal, whose 100 lawyers represent people who say they were victims of government brutality. "I think there are orders to repress and attack demonstrators."

The accusations come as Mr. Maduro's government and opposition leaders met on Tuesday for a second day to resolve a crisis that has led to about 40 deaths and hundreds of injuries and arrests.

Calls and emails seeking comment from the Interior and Justice Ministry, the National Guard and the Communications Ministry weren't returned. A spokesman for Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz didn't make her available for an interview but referred to her public comments.

"One of the great lies here is that the Venezuelan state is a violator of human rights—that's not true," Ms. Ortega Díaz said on a pro-government talk show recently.

There have been fatalities on both sides, including six guardsmen whose deaths the government blames on antigovernment forces. But alleged victims and human-rights groups say most of the victims have been government opponents shot by intelligence agents or the National Guard—which serves as an internal security force.

The family of José Alejandro Márquez Fagundez, a 45-year-old systems engineer, said guardsmen chased him down and detained him after spotting him taking pictures at a protest outside his Caracas apartment. The scene was captured on a widely viewed video.

Three hours later, his wife, Johanna Aguirre, and Mr. Márquez's sister, Nancy Márquez, said they found him lying in a public hospital with blood caked around an ear and a large bruise to the back of his head, according to pictures provided by his family. Mr. Márquez, whose cranium was fractured, according to a medical report, slipped into a coma and died three days later. The family holds the government responsible.

In a presentation on national television, National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, speaking for the government, said that Mr. Márquez had been "a hit man and mercenary who was contracted to kill President Maduro."

Reading from Mr. Márquez's  Facebook  FB -0.23%     page, where he was pictured in camouflage and holding what looked like a rifle, Mr. Cabello said Mr. Márquez had failed in his mission and so "his own comrades killed that man."

Mr. Márquez's family said the Facebook photographs had been taken at his weekend hobby, Air Soft "war games," which is similar to paintball but uses nonlethal arms called Air Soft guns that fire pellets. "He loved it—the competition," said his widow, Ms. Aguirre, in an interview.

Meanwhile, an independent group of United Nations human-rights experts who specialize in extrajudicial executions and arbitrary detentions recently asked Venezuela to prosecute what it called credible reports of attacks on protesters, whose numbers are diminishing.

"Some were reportedly beaten—and in some cases severely tortured—by security forces, taken to military facilities, kept in incommunicado detention and denied access to legal assistance," the group said in a statement.

Human-rights groups say hate speech from the government encourages such treatment and contributes to a fraught atmosphere.

When the protests began in February, Mr. Maduro pledged an "iron hand against conspirators and destabilizers." The president has since repeatedly labeled the demonstrators—which in some instances have numbered in the tens of thousands—fascists, assassins and Washington stooges out to topple the government.

Liliana Ortega, who heads the rights group COFAVIC, which is interviewing victims who say they were brutalized in protests, said the combative rhetoric and street crackdown began after the April 14, 2013 presidential election to succeed Mr. Chávez, who died of cancer. Mr. Maduro's narrow victory led to nationwide demonstrations after opposition leaders alleged voting irregularities. Nine people died.

"Criminalizing the victims and discrediting them by calling them terrorists and fascists is something we documented well in April of 2013, and it repeats itself now," said Ms. Ortega, who said the level of violence has intensified over the past year as Mr. Maduro battles a deteriorating economy. "The security force's performance has been much more brutal, much more repressive."

Other protesters have alleged that guardsmen have beaten and even tortured them in detention.

Juan Manuel Carrasco, a 21-year-old carpenter, posted pictures of the bruising on his body after he said guardsmen surrounded him at a demonstration and beat him. Mr. Carrasco said one guardsman rammed his rifle into his anus.

"I tried not to scream because if I made any noise, I think they would have killed me," he said during an interview at his parent's home, where he was recovering.

Venezuela's attorney general, Ms. Ortega Díaz, recently said that six intelligence agents were among more than a dozen members of state security forces who have been arrested in connection with violence at the protests. She said the arrests show the justice system works.

Rights groups and opposition leaders here say they have little confidence that anyone will be prosecuted. Venezuela's justice system—from its Supreme Court to regional courts to the judicial police—is controlled by the executive branch, according to the human rights commission of the Organization of American States. Few violent crimes, whether ordinary street violence or killings in streets protests, are ever properly investigated or make it to trial, said Marino Alvarado, who runs the Caracas rights group, PROVEA.

For now, it is the photographs and videos of the violence—as well as the public declarations of the victims' families—that have resonated beyond Venezuela largely through social media.

One photograph shows a guardsman swinging his rifle at the knees of an elderly man as he held up his hands in defense. Another pictures a former beauty queen, shot in the head during an antigovernment protest, being carried off on a motorcycle to the hospital where she died.

In some videos, motorcyclists are seen swarming into neighborhoods and beating demonstrators. In others, guardsmen shoot their weapons at high-rise apartments where government opponents had been yelling obscenities or throwing objects at them.

Rosa Maria Orozco, who says her daughter, Geraldin Moreno, 23, was shot and killed by a guardsman at a protest, has gone as far as Washington to meet with two senators who have accused Mr. Maduro's government of rights abuses, Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez. She and lawyers from Foro Penal say that a rubber bullet was fired at point-blank range at Geraldin's face.

"I have never seen such repression by the soldiers," said Ms. Orozco. "When have you heard of a soldier shooting a young girl in the eye?"

Marvinia Jiménez, who is 36, was filmed being beaten by an alleged guardsman in the midst of a protest on Feb. 24 in Valencia. Guardsmen allegedly grabbed her, with one of them—a female member—taking her by the hair, dragging her to the ground and pinning her arms.

"Then she began swinging," said Ms. Jiménez, who wore a neck brace, her left eye sporting a purple welt, as she recounted the ordeal. "I was just shouting my name in the hope that someone in the street would hear it and tell my son if I showed up dead. My name is Marvinia Jiménez! My name is Marvinia Jiménez!"

Kejal Vyas in Caracas contributed to this article.

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